Eight innovative ways drones are being used today

©Marek Uliasz via 123RF

Police drones

Across America and Britain, police forces are employing drones for surveillance. The FBI in particular has been using drones to patrol the United States border. In Britain, drones are being used to help search for missing people, monitor traffic accidents and capture crime scene footage.

Builder drones

Earlier this year the head of the Sagrada Familia building project in Barcelona said that they are using drones experimentally to assist in construction by scanning the building’s tall exterior. In Zurich engineers have also trained drones to be able to weave simple buildings autonomously. The drones are able to work either collectively or individually to weave, while other drones manage to avoid the hanging ropes.

Agriculture drones

With people killing up to 20,000 elephants a year because they damage farmlands in Tanzania, drones are now being tested in Tarangire National Park as a means of 'herding'. Elephants are afraid of the sound of drones, so drones are deployed to a particular area and 'herd' the elephants away with its sound.

Drones can now also spot when nitrogen levels are low or when disease affects farmlands to assist commercial farmers.

Delivery drones

Amazon has already posted advertisements for delivery drone operators in the UK, but it was DHL that was the first company to complete a commercial delivery with a drone. Last year it made a delivery to a pharmaceutical company based on an island off the coast of Germany. A company in Africa is also using drones to drop of food and medical supplies in villages where it’s needed. This helps to get lifesaving medicine to remote villages in a fraction of the time it would take by road.

Entertainment drones

In 2014, Disney patented three drone-related designs. The designs include drones that hold up larger-than-life marionettes or projection screens for nighttime entertainment. Furthermore, the patents stipulate how drones can be used instead of fireworks. Drones are planned to carry a lighting assembly that could display images or colours, making use of the sky as a screen.

Rescue drones

After flooding hit Texas, America, drones were deployed to search for survivors because of their ability to cover vast distances in a small amount of time. Drones can fly lower than helicopters and provide aerial footage at a fraction of the cost. Drones have also been used to spot and fight wildfires by allowing fire fighters to reach effected areas in a much quicker time.

Wildlife drones

In Kenya drones are being used to monitor Ol Pejeta Conservancy, East Africa’s biggest black rhino sanctuary. While in auto-polite mode, these drones send real-time digital video and thermal imaging feeds of animals and poachers to rangers on the ground. The information enables the conservancy’s rangers to deploy a security team to the exact location in the event of poaching.

Oceanic environmental activist group Ocean Alliance has also announced that they are using drones to collect whale blows (or snot) to monitor their health. The use of drones eliminates potential harm caused through conventional research processes such that involve using a boat.

Safety drones

Budget airline operator EasyJet has started using drones to do safety inspections on its airlines. The drones are able to access hard-to-reach places quickly and engineers can inspect the drone images for possible faults. This hugely decreases the turn-around period and hence increases profits.